1. What are 3 different ways to account for SES in a analytic models when investigating racial/ethnic health disparities? Briefly discuss the interpretations/implications of each approach as it relates to understanding health disparities by race/ethnicity.
1. Effect Modifier: The stratification of SES and its differing levels of measurement such as wealth, income distribution, and educational background, can modify the magnitude of association between exposure and outcome. By stratifying the SES categories and analyzing the association between ethnicity and health outcomes in relation to the SES categories, we could control for effect modification. This is especially beneficial when asking for funding to invest in a policy that targets these groups and categories.
2.Effect Mediator: SES when posed as an effect mediator could propose a relationship between race/ethnicity and health outcomes, which shows a distribution of a health disparity.
3. Contextual Effect: Collective or group SES may have an effect on individual-level association between race/ethnicity and health disparities. Contexts like neighborhood and community behavior may impact health behaviors and outcomes.
2. Describe a potential effect modifier, mediator, or contextual variable (for definition of contextual variable, see Diez-Roux reading) for an association of interest to you and relevant to health disparities. For example, for investigating the association between education and hypertension, I might be interested in evaluating whether the association in between years of education and hypertension is different for Black men than for White men. Describe how you would study whether this relationship exists.
Is the association between education and hypertension due to stress amongst South Asian females in the Bay Area? A potential mediator could be health behaviors for immigrant women versus women who have been born and brought up in the Bay Area. These health behaviors could be related to ethnicity in terms of health literacy, age, and genetics.
3. Respond to one other person's post on the forum with a comment or suggestion.
In response to the model of SES with traffic injury, I wonder if the type of traffic injury such as local streets versus larger, highway injury would impact the study design in order to differentiate the neighborhood types.